The reviews

Adieu False Heart
Linda Ronstadt, Ann Savoy
Vanguard Records ***
This teaming of Linda Ronstadt and Cajun folk traditionalist Ann Savoy, billing themselves as the Zozo Sisters, shows how wide is the musical range of bittersweetness.

The harmonies and shared lead vocals offer a complementary contrast between Ronstadt’s purity of tone and Savoy’s more piquant expressiveness.
The arrangements turn folk songs into art songs, drawing as much upon chamber strings as Cajun fiddle and accordion. There’s an exquisite beauty to the vocals, but the real surprise is how well the album holds together, given a range of material that extends from Cajun songs in French patois to stellar material from Julie Miller and Richard Thompson to a disarming revival of the Left Banke’s 1960s hit Walk Away Renee. Among other highlights, Go Away from My Window provides a showcase for the upper register of Ronstadt’s soprano.

Declare a New State
Submarines
Nettwerk Records ****
Declare a New State is the sound of a break-up. It’s also the sound of a reunion. In Clouds, former solo artist Blake Hazard (Little Airplane), the great-great granddaughter of F Scott Fitzgerald, sings, “Tonight I won’t be coming home”. Then in Hope, John Dragonetti, who used to record as Jack Drag, sings, “I should have known you were gonna drift away”.
The irony is that the making of their debut helped to bring the two Boston-bred, LA-based Submarines back together. Many songs were written separately and each takes the lead on different ones.
Perhaps because they were reconciling while making the album, Declare a New State is neither dark nor depressing, but rather bittersweet and optimistic, an effect reinforced as much by the reflective lyrics.

Getting Somewhere
Allison Moorer
Sugarhill [Country] ***
Marriage to Steve Earle (who produced this album) seems to have inspired the musical emancipation of Allison Moorer.
Whereas her earliest releases seemed to balance commercial country potential with alt-country attitude, her sixth album achieves a different sort of balance – between fuzztone guitars and Beatlesque melodies, hooks, and harmonies.
The music would be hard to classify as country, but is difficult to resist. Rather than extending the tradition of Patsy Cline or Dolly Parton, the ebullient propulsion of the opening Work to Do reminds one more of the Go-Go’s and the Bangles.
While her soulful singing and Southern accent remain undiminished, the results sound less like a musical progression for Moorer than a fresh start.